I have a 2005 prius with 139k miles on it. It has not been driven in a year, and when my father and I took it out for a drive before I started driving it again it suddenly came up with some lights. the Hybrid System Warning light, the master warning light, Check engine light and one other that I cannot remember came on all at the same time. My father decided to drive it back home instead of paying to get it towed and at some point it started to slow down, a lot. He was flooring it and it was going 35 mph, tops. luckily we had almost arrived home. My question is: How screwed am I? Thanks
If this is a survey........ I vote very since your dad decided to drive it back home with the warning lights blazing and the car obviously limping along. As bisco stated, you need to read the codes. Many generic OBDII code scanners can read some of the Prius unique codes like P0A80 and P3011 which is the code for battery block 1. It's very likely that a cell in one or more of the modules has failed. Maybe you'll be lucky but I doubt it. Why was the car sitting unused for a year?
A 2005 battery is getting old and weak and letting it sit unused for so long most likely finally killed it. Getting the trouble codes read will tell for sure.
My ODBII reader says it found two codes but when I go to read the codes it says that no codes were stored in the module. The dealership I bought it from said he had the dead cells replaced in the battery. Is that what I should do if that is the problem?
This is very similar scenario to my 06 which, as of this weekend, became my sons daily driver. See the link in my signature on what happen with it after sitting with weak modules.
I got the fault codes p0a80 and p3014 when I read it with my new odbII reader. So looks like it really is a weak battery that needs repair. is it a difficult fix? I did some research on it and it didn't look all that hard.
if you don't mind yanking the battery every once in a while, you can learn how to match modules and replace them as necessary.
Alright, we pulled the battery out and tested each individual cell and came out to mostly 7.70v on each one (within a margin of error) except these ones: (3) 6.45v (5) 6.95v (11) 6.45v (21) 6.45v (23) 6.08v (27) 6.45v and less concerning was (25) 7.37v The code reader gave me a p3014 error but block 4 was fine. Could that mean 14 and be reading 27 as bad? Money is tight, do I need to change all of the listed cells, except 25 maybe?
IMO, that pack is a goner. Hopefully some of the rebuilders who participate here will give their 2 cents.
That is a LOT of dead modules in one pack. I started with two, charged them with a GOOD RC charger, reinstalled the pack and now have 3 bad modules by voltage. My mistake? Not DISCHARGING and recharging them prior to testing. You cannot tell the health or capacity of a battery without LOAD TESTING and I know better, but tried to cheat and got caught. You only need about a 1amp draw on these to tell if they are salvageable, lower might work too but much more can do damage. I plan to use a 1156/1157 bulb once all the modules are recharged for testing purposes, so I can have some confidence that installing the pack is worthwhile. If I get three or more failures I will upgrade the pack because messing with this is no longer worth my time.
Alright, thanks for all the help guys. I think at this juncture I'm going to take the risk and load test/recondition the batteries properly. Will an iMAX B6 work for the job? I don't really have $1400+ to drop on a new battery for a car that was worth <$5000 when it worked properly.
Doubtful I am the only person here who would be interested in knowing where one can get a new battery for $1400+ these days? Thanks!
You cannot buy a new battery for that price ($1400). For a battery that has been sitting a year it is better do some charge/discharge cycles to exercise it, Before driving it. As you can imagine, the battery gets out of balance after sitting for a year. If it wasn't damaged to begin with, it likely got damaged when driven in an unbalanced state. Hopefully other electrical components were not damaged by driving in this state. Since money is tight, why not build a pack charger yourself. Only cost you $60 or so using power supplies. Would be quicker and you'll need it after the rebuild. That is a lot of failed modules. Increasing the likelihood of not working out. With numerous failed modules, you may want to find a different pack from a junkyard. It will be as big of a crap shoot as yours, but maybe you can find one with less failed modules. Where are you located in Illinois? I have some modules you could come pick up in Madison, WI.
I was looking at reconditioned batteries for that price. I don't know if I would be any better off with that anyway. do you have a link to a guide for building a pack charger? I can't seem to find a post about it. Wow, that would be a huge help. I am about an hour away from Madison.
